Blog Posts From The Brave Programmer

Microsoft is giving away £1,000,000

Wow, that’s a lot of money. Microsoft giving away £1,000,000. Is this true? Microsoft have enough money that this would not even make a dent in their small change.

Scam

But alas, sorry to burst your bubble, this is a scam.

I thought I would just let everyone know that there are numerous emails making the rounds. This is a relatively old scam, but it seems to be surfacing again.

The emails come in a variety of formats and offer a variety of prizes. But the basics are that they claim to come from Microsoft and claim that you have won some fantastic prize.

In the body are various links encouraging you to click them. DON’T. You will be taken to some phishing site. This site will no doubt try to extort money out of you, try to get your banking details, usernames and passwords, but will also try to download a virus to your PC.

But probably worse is there might be an attempt of identity theft. This is akin to the old 419 scam.

The Microsoft lottery scam is a fraud that usually starts with an email messages that claim the recipient has won "The Microsoft Lottery."

There is no Microsoft lottery and if you receive this kind of email it has been sent by cybercriminals in an attempt to steal money from you. - Official Word from Microsoft.

There are various other sites that report on such scams, viruses and the like. Check out Hoax-Slayer.

Warning!

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Please check all facts before you jump in and believe all or any emails you receive.

Outlook does a decent job of filtering out such emails, but some might slip through the cracks.

Use your common sense and good judgement.

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